A Free Mage
by Irnysian
Summary: A Warden Abomination can't stay in control forever. He can't keep the woman he loves happy for the rest of her life. He can't give her everything she desires. But he can fight as hard as he can to try just a little longer. One-shot


She was the most perfect being he had ever laid his eyes on. He was not afraid to say that, to himself, to her…to Justice. She agreed with him, every thought he had on mages. She followed him when he tried to free their magical brethren. She called him her husband, even though they had never really been married, and he called her his wife, even though he never had any ring to put on her little finger.

Oh, her little fingers…she had such small hands, such feminine hands. He loved those hands, and he loved the wrists that kept them there. He loved everything about her: the slope of her nose, the slant of her eyes, the way her lips twitched at the corners when she was being sarcastic. If he could list every single thing she did that he loved, it would take up pages of parchment.

But he knew it wouldn't last. Not as long as he would have liked. He could feel it, the taint of the darkspawn changing him. He may have been an abomination, but that didn't mean he was immune. At least, that's what it felt like. And every day, every week, every month, he had a harder time focusing. Just a bit harder, but when it builds up, you start to realize.

She realized it, too. He'd wake up from nightmares, thrashing in his sleep, and she'd be there, awake even before he began the worst of the blows, to calm him down. After a while, he started to notice bruises on her body, whenever she bathed. He knew he had given those to her, in his sleep…but she never said a word, never told him what he had done. They both knew, and they both knew the other knew, but they never said anything.

As the months passed, he became more distant. Years passed by, and he fought to regain his control, his personality. He tried to smile again, tried to act like a gentleman, tried to be annoying and perverted and wonderful. But then, more months would pass, he would slip again. He started noticing changes, whenever he regained sense of it all; she had wrinkles next to her eyes, and between her eyebrows. Her perfect lips looked sad all the time, like she had spent a year frowning and never regained her smile.

She wanted a baby. She never explained why she wanted one, but she did. He tried to talk her out of it, tried to explain that it would be a bad idea; Wardens had a hard time having children, and they were both mages, so their child was bound to be cursed by it, too. She argued that it wasn't a curse, he had even said so! But they both knew that he meant the child would be cursed with having to run all the time, that both its parents had to run all the time, that its father was an abomination, and a Warden. Every argument he made, she shot it down and fought back with as much conviction as himself. So, he broke down, and accepted her desire.

It took a long time, and there were a lot of mishaps. Eventually, she gave up, and took to moping about wherever they had taken up shelter for the time. He still tried to give her what she had wanted, but he thought back to all the years…they were aging, and that meant it would be even harder for them. Perhaps that was why she had given up? But still he tried…it was the only thing that kept his mind in control, the only thing that kept him fighting for control, for sanity.

It was too much, though. One morning he woke up, and she was gone. A note on the desk of the room they had rented said that she refused to watch him fade away. But she would be back. That's what it said at the bottom, she would be back. With her web of contacts, her network of spies, that trick she had learned from Varric and the nobles she had been surrounded by, she could watch him without looking. And she would be back, because she loved him.

That was why, when that knife plunged into his back, he knew she had returned. Her perfect blond hair was gone now, faded, grey. She had many more wrinkles than he remembered, and those lovely slanted eyes looked sad, tormented. She had watched, without watching, and heard, without hearing, his downfall into taint-driven madness. She had seen, before she set him free with the blade she so coddled all the time he had known her, that Justice seeped through more than he should have, that Anders was not Anders anymore.

When he was dead, she burned his body. She scattered his ashes in the woods, in the sea, in the lowlands and highlands. She scattered him everywhere, and he could see her; with every particle she dropped, tears fell from her eyes. This had been the man she loved, the man she had wished to marry, the man she had wished to die next to, to have children with. This had been the man she had watched fade away.

Now, he was free. His ashes belonged to all of Thedas, and he could be a free mage, like he had wanted. True, it was all symbolic, but…it was worth it.

Author's Note: Oh dear, a sad story.

I know, I know: why would I do such a thing to Anders? Well, if you must know, this came to me while I was sleeping (well, while I was waking up, which is pretty much the same thing, if you think about it), and all I knew was that I had to write it, I had to let it be known.

Basically, the idea that came to me was caused by Dragon Age Legacy. Now, if you don't know what that is, it's a new DLC for Dragon Age II. I paid, basically, ten dollars for it, and plaid with my wonderful Henrietta Hawke, who, by the way, is a red head, not a blonde.B Ut, because of this playthrough of the DLC, I came upon the thought: "What would Anders be like as he lost himself to the Calling, and to Justice?"

And that, dear ones, is why I wrote this little dandy. I admit, it's very sad, and I wish it wasn't. But, if you had to think about what could possibly happen to Anders, this seems pretty likely.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Because it sure as hell ripped my heart out coming up with it.


End file.
